Inspired by the Journey to the West, Gandhara is devoted to both Western and Eastern Truth.
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂ - Hail the Lord whose name eliminates spiritual darkness.
Om Ganeshaya Namaha (ॐ गणेशाय नमः) - Homage to Ganesha.
Unconditional love tranquilizes the mind, and thus conquers all.
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Showing posts with label substance abuse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label substance abuse. Show all posts
20140204
Methamphetamine Use Trouble Spots (satire)
Depicted above are cities where methamphetamine has been reported as a problem.
If you live in these cities, then you might have met or seen a lot of people high on meth. YMMV
If you don't then that does not mean your country does not have a meth problem.
Currently the trouble spots nationally are the Philippines and Canada (see graphic below).
The above information merely charts mention of meth busts in cities and regions globally.
It is likely that if you are not a recreational drug user then you will not experience a problem with meth users or even meet a tweaker looking for meth crystals on the sidewalk while doing the "meth dance."
Here is the first of a series of three videos of Shane Nasty, the meth dancing bum:
On this youtube page to the right are other examples of meth addicts to peruse.
My conclusion on the matter of recreational meth use is that with the addictive personality, crystal meth is worse than crack cocaine or heroin. YMMV
However, psychiatrists routine prescribe methamphetamine or amphetamine for children with ADHD who rarely become drug addicts because they treat their medication responsibly. Though, people with undiagnosed ADHD have a high risk to self-medicate with alcohol and other substances of abuse. often, their self-medication may lead to drug abuse and a high risk of homelessness and poverty.
Thus methamphetamine is the post-modern day equivalent of chronic alcoholism, crack addiction, and heroin abuse.
My final word on the matter of meth abuse is, "Mmmm drugs (like alcohol, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine) are bad."
SMART PEOPLE DON'T DO DRUGS, BUT SOMETIMES SUPPOSEDLY SMART PEOPLE STUPIDLY MAKE BAD CHOICES LIKE DRUG ABUSE.
YMMV
Reference:
Worldwide trend on metamphetamine bought to you by Google: http://www.google.com/trends/explore#cat=0&q=Methamphetamine,&geo=&gprop=&cmpt=q
Labels:
alcohol,
crack cocaine,
crystal meth,
drug abuse,
Drugs are bad,
heroin,
meth,
methamphetamine,
satire,
self-medicating,
substance abuse
20131108
Gateway Drug Myth (satire)
A few days ago, I noticed a couple with their child.
What brought them to my attention was the fact that the mother was drinking from a can of beer. This was after hearing their baby cry non-stop for about fifteen minutes on the bus.
Nobody dared challenge the couple lest harm befall the child.
Yet harm has already been done, because the baby was earnestly trying to attract the attention of its parents, both of whom displayed overt neglect of their child.
When I got off the bus, I was slightly upset. When I was about to report the intoxicated couple to Skytrain attendants, the Skytrain arrived.
Rather than do the right thing, I boarded the train.
At that moment, I failed a child who is being neglected by its parents due to their addiction issues.
My hope is that karma does not bite my ass when this child grows up.
Even so, I justify my inaction by stating that a worse fate for that child might be the alternative to neglect and later abuse by birth parents: being removed and placed in a foster family and the additional complexity of that outcome.
It does not matter if the child removed due to neglect in its birth family. That child will still face the risk of neglect and perhaps abuse in a foster home. Adoption is no better because the same risks in an adoptive family.
In fact, BC's Ministry of Children and Family Services (MoCFS) has consistently failed children, mainly because people behave differently in front of authority. They sometimes put on an act to look like a caring family when under scrutiny.
A case in point: a child was born to an alcoholic mother. MoCFS officials removed the child as "at risk" but made the mistake of placing the child in the care of the mother's brother, a man who was known in their community as a violent alcoholic.
Within months in the care of the brother's family, the child ended up beaten to death because, while drunk, he beat up the child because it desperately sought care and comfort by crying non-stop for hours.
It is also likely the child was placed in that family because they lied to Ministry officials in order to collect additional benefits to support their social drinking, which they may have claimed was under control.
In another case, MoCFS officials threatened a single mother with a child with removal of her child if she did not give up her recreational use of marijuana. The mother never neglected the child and family members could vouch for her caring behavior even when under the influence.
Yet Ministry officials considered marijuana to be more dangerous than alcohol, despite the previous scenario in which a dangerous alcoholic killed his niece.
In yet another case, a two year-old girl was released in care of an uncle, who hitchhiked all the way to BC from Saskatchewan and managed to convince MoCFS officials to given him airfare to return to Saskatchewan. Rather than buy air passage, the man spent it on recreational drugs, which he had been under the influence in the presence of social workers! Instead of being a proper caregiver, the uncle beat her and locked her away when he was out abusing drugs. He even mentally abused her by calling her an "evil child".
IMO the BC Ministry of Children and Family Services exercises legal form of child abduction based on its premise regarding illegal drugs and alcohol i.e. that marijuana smokers put their child at risk which is greater than the risk that chronic alcoholics pose to children under their care.
Furthermore, the Ministry abducts children based on information that parents are using drugs and/or alcohol reported to them without doing an assessment to determine that the parents are addicts. They also allow fail to do a background check on out-of-province relatives of children in their care.
Indeed, it is possible for a concerned busybody to call up the emergency hot-line and state falsely that the parents are chronic alcoholics or drug addicts, when in actual fact the parents use alcohol and/or marijuana recreationally but not in front of their children. Usually the concerned busybody may report false information due to malevolence towards the parents, sometimes because it helps their court case regarding heroin and/or methadone.
Additionally the RCMP are also complicit in the legal abduction of children by the Ministry, since they accompany Ministry officials to help remove child-at-risk.
IMO the BC Ministry of Children and Family Services operates a form of legalized child abduction and adoption service. It does so while promoting the illusion that the BC cares for at-risk children.
In fact the Ministry of Children and Family Services has shown that legalized child abduction has consistently placed children at greater risk because there is no way of closely scrutinizing foster and adoptive families without violation of privacy rights.
Also, the Ministry is unable to closely monitor certain social workers who recreationally use alcohol and/or cocaine with the aim to reduce the risk of errors in judgments made in cases where an official with a substance use issue is biased against families who recreationally use marijuana.
This is because of federal drug laws and the false assumption that recreational drug users are placing their children at risk.
IMO Ministry officials also carefully scrutinize everyone with kids who regularly drink socially, rather than just going after chronic alcoholics and drug addicts.
It is so simple to implement this policy. All a social worker has to do is closely monitor social drinking after hours and anonymously report the most chromic of alcoholics in a special whistle-blowing program that protect the rights of the whistle-blower.
Since research has discovered that food is more addictive than drugs, health officials should closely monitor obesity because food is the gateway drug to illicit drugs and alcohol.
Of course, we know food isn't a gateway drug.
I merely followed the same simplistic logic used by Ministry of Children and Family Services to subject parents to the same scrutiny the RCMP uses to ensure illegal drugs remain under close scrutiny due to drug laws that only lead to enormous profits for criminal gangs.
Legalizing drugs would solve this problem by causing the price of most illegal drugs to drop so low that most crime gangs would buy it for cheap to peddle in countries with strong drug laws at enormous profit. Thus, global drug legalization could save more lives than the current "war on drugs" ever has.
As for crime gangs who would turn from peddling drugs locally to selling it globally, that can be stopped by licensing drug use and limiting supply to the licensee. If the licensed user is known to be selling his drugs, selling it at a higher cost wouldn't be feasible since almost anyone could go to the government-approve drug dispensary for cheaper prices. It would be impossible to sell the drugs in Canada. In order for him to resell his drugs, the drug user would then have to buy a vendor's license and a business license. The RCMP would then have to monitor sellers of the drugs for selling drugs without a license.
IMO the reason why the RCMP believes recreational drugs should remain illegal (drugs are dangerous when abused) is actually a smoke screen for the true reason why such drugs remain illegal (drugs are more profitable when illegal and thus should be policed). In essence then, the powers that be wish recreational drugs to remain illegal because then taxpayers' money is best spent in policing the drug laws. The criminals win and the justice system wins.
Such drug policies look like they are made by narcissists to protect their interest in alcohol and tobacco.
Such policies also harm single mothers' mental well-being via the gateway drug myth that determines the use of emotional blackmail to pressure said mothers simply because they recreationally use marijuana while not also carefully scrutinizing mothers who drink recreationally or are former heroin addicts on methadone. That is a potential human rights issue.
IMO the propaganda against marijuana was designed to dupe the people of Canada into believing that marijuana is a dangerous drug simply because it looks like the RCMP policing marijuana is a good use of taxpayers' dollars.
Yet billions of dollars of profit are made annually by crime gangs due to drug laws, profit that would dry up when our drug laws are abolished and returned to being the health issue of addiction.
Once that is done, we can spend taxpayers' money wisely through harm reduction and addiction research.
For the cheapest way to solve addiction , research the most addictive substance in the world: high fat, high sugar food.
What brought them to my attention was the fact that the mother was drinking from a can of beer. This was after hearing their baby cry non-stop for about fifteen minutes on the bus.
Nobody dared challenge the couple lest harm befall the child.
Yet harm has already been done, because the baby was earnestly trying to attract the attention of its parents, both of whom displayed overt neglect of their child.
When I got off the bus, I was slightly upset. When I was about to report the intoxicated couple to Skytrain attendants, the Skytrain arrived.
Rather than do the right thing, I boarded the train.
At that moment, I failed a child who is being neglected by its parents due to their addiction issues.
My hope is that karma does not bite my ass when this child grows up.
Even so, I justify my inaction by stating that a worse fate for that child might be the alternative to neglect and later abuse by birth parents: being removed and placed in a foster family and the additional complexity of that outcome.
It does not matter if the child removed due to neglect in its birth family. That child will still face the risk of neglect and perhaps abuse in a foster home. Adoption is no better because the same risks in an adoptive family.
In fact, BC's Ministry of Children and Family Services (MoCFS) has consistently failed children, mainly because people behave differently in front of authority. They sometimes put on an act to look like a caring family when under scrutiny.
A case in point: a child was born to an alcoholic mother. MoCFS officials removed the child as "at risk" but made the mistake of placing the child in the care of the mother's brother, a man who was known in their community as a violent alcoholic.
Within months in the care of the brother's family, the child ended up beaten to death because, while drunk, he beat up the child because it desperately sought care and comfort by crying non-stop for hours.
It is also likely the child was placed in that family because they lied to Ministry officials in order to collect additional benefits to support their social drinking, which they may have claimed was under control.
In another case, MoCFS officials threatened a single mother with a child with removal of her child if she did not give up her recreational use of marijuana. The mother never neglected the child and family members could vouch for her caring behavior even when under the influence.
Yet Ministry officials considered marijuana to be more dangerous than alcohol, despite the previous scenario in which a dangerous alcoholic killed his niece.
In yet another case, a two year-old girl was released in care of an uncle, who hitchhiked all the way to BC from Saskatchewan and managed to convince MoCFS officials to given him airfare to return to Saskatchewan. Rather than buy air passage, the man spent it on recreational drugs, which he had been under the influence in the presence of social workers! Instead of being a proper caregiver, the uncle beat her and locked her away when he was out abusing drugs. He even mentally abused her by calling her an "evil child".
IMO the BC Ministry of Children and Family Services exercises legal form of child abduction based on its premise regarding illegal drugs and alcohol i.e. that marijuana smokers put their child at risk which is greater than the risk that chronic alcoholics pose to children under their care.
Furthermore, the Ministry abducts children based on information that parents are using drugs and/or alcohol reported to them without doing an assessment to determine that the parents are addicts. They also allow fail to do a background check on out-of-province relatives of children in their care.
Indeed, it is possible for a concerned busybody to call up the emergency hot-line and state falsely that the parents are chronic alcoholics or drug addicts, when in actual fact the parents use alcohol and/or marijuana recreationally but not in front of their children. Usually the concerned busybody may report false information due to malevolence towards the parents, sometimes because it helps their court case regarding heroin and/or methadone.
Additionally the RCMP are also complicit in the legal abduction of children by the Ministry, since they accompany Ministry officials to help remove child-at-risk.
IMO the BC Ministry of Children and Family Services operates a form of legalized child abduction and adoption service. It does so while promoting the illusion that the BC cares for at-risk children.
In fact the Ministry of Children and Family Services has shown that legalized child abduction has consistently placed children at greater risk because there is no way of closely scrutinizing foster and adoptive families without violation of privacy rights.
Also, the Ministry is unable to closely monitor certain social workers who recreationally use alcohol and/or cocaine with the aim to reduce the risk of errors in judgments made in cases where an official with a substance use issue is biased against families who recreationally use marijuana.
This is because of federal drug laws and the false assumption that recreational drug users are placing their children at risk.
IMO Ministry officials also carefully scrutinize everyone with kids who regularly drink socially, rather than just going after chronic alcoholics and drug addicts.
It is so simple to implement this policy. All a social worker has to do is closely monitor social drinking after hours and anonymously report the most chromic of alcoholics in a special whistle-blowing program that protect the rights of the whistle-blower.
Since research has discovered that food is more addictive than drugs, health officials should closely monitor obesity because food is the gateway drug to illicit drugs and alcohol.
Of course, we know food isn't a gateway drug.
I merely followed the same simplistic logic used by Ministry of Children and Family Services to subject parents to the same scrutiny the RCMP uses to ensure illegal drugs remain under close scrutiny due to drug laws that only lead to enormous profits for criminal gangs.
Legalizing drugs would solve this problem by causing the price of most illegal drugs to drop so low that most crime gangs would buy it for cheap to peddle in countries with strong drug laws at enormous profit. Thus, global drug legalization could save more lives than the current "war on drugs" ever has.
As for crime gangs who would turn from peddling drugs locally to selling it globally, that can be stopped by licensing drug use and limiting supply to the licensee. If the licensed user is known to be selling his drugs, selling it at a higher cost wouldn't be feasible since almost anyone could go to the government-approve drug dispensary for cheaper prices. It would be impossible to sell the drugs in Canada. In order for him to resell his drugs, the drug user would then have to buy a vendor's license and a business license. The RCMP would then have to monitor sellers of the drugs for selling drugs without a license.
IMO the reason why the RCMP believes recreational drugs should remain illegal (drugs are dangerous when abused) is actually a smoke screen for the true reason why such drugs remain illegal (drugs are more profitable when illegal and thus should be policed). In essence then, the powers that be wish recreational drugs to remain illegal because then taxpayers' money is best spent in policing the drug laws. The criminals win and the justice system wins.
Such drug policies look like they are made by narcissists to protect their interest in alcohol and tobacco.
Such policies also harm single mothers' mental well-being via the gateway drug myth that determines the use of emotional blackmail to pressure said mothers simply because they recreationally use marijuana while not also carefully scrutinizing mothers who drink recreationally or are former heroin addicts on methadone. That is a potential human rights issue.
IMO the propaganda against marijuana was designed to dupe the people of Canada into believing that marijuana is a dangerous drug simply because it looks like the RCMP policing marijuana is a good use of taxpayers' dollars.
Yet billions of dollars of profit are made annually by crime gangs due to drug laws, profit that would dry up when our drug laws are abolished and returned to being the health issue of addiction.
Once that is done, we can spend taxpayers' money wisely through harm reduction and addiction research.
For the cheapest way to solve addiction , research the most addictive substance in the world: high fat, high sugar food.
Labels:
drug addiction,
harm reduction,
marijuana,
satire,
substance abuse
20070216
Early use of SSRIs may worsen emotional disturbance
Mice treated with the antidepressant Prozac early in life grow into adults with emotional problems, a new report concludes.
Whether the drug has the same effect on people is unknown. But the result will add to the growing debate over what risks Prozac (fluoxetine) and similar SSRI drugs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) pose for young children and unborn babies.
'If they really need these drugs, people should take them. They can be life savers,' says Jay Gingrich, a psychiatrist at Columbia University in New York City, US, who led the research. 'But it is a little bit alarming to find they might carry risks that aren't apparent until later in life.'
Researchers began injecting mice with fluoxetine four days after birth until they were 21 days old. Nine weeks after their last injection, the adult animals were given a series of behavioural tests designed to assess their level of anxiety and depression.
The team found that rodents who received drug as newborns were more intimidated by new surroundings and moved more slowly to avoid painful shocks compared to controls. 'They are more inhibited in novel situations,' says Gingrich. 'Extrapolating to people, we'd say the mice are showing symptoms of anxiety and depression or emotional problems.'
With more and more children being given SSRIs to treat socially inappropriate behaviors, the risks associated with emotional disturbances amongst young adults is increasing at alarming rates.
Although children on SSRIs may no more likely to experience a brief psychotic episode than children with a substance abuse disorder, the increased risk of self-harm and/or harm to others does not justify increased use of SSRIs to moderate socially inappropriate behaviors.
Rather, it appears that the use of SSRIs is merely another method of regulating children's behavior, and is not unlike the use of TV and video games in that the parents may choose the relative peace to actual pro-activeparticipation in their children's lives.
Indeed, studies have shown that parents who actively participate in their children's lives also aid in moderating their children's behavior such that socially inappropriate syndromes are easily moderated.
So yes, getting involved in their children's lives is more effective than Paxil and Ritalin.
Whether the drug has the same effect on people is unknown. But the result will add to the growing debate over what risks Prozac (fluoxetine) and similar SSRI drugs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) pose for young children and unborn babies.
'If they really need these drugs, people should take them. They can be life savers,' says Jay Gingrich, a psychiatrist at Columbia University in New York City, US, who led the research. 'But it is a little bit alarming to find they might carry risks that aren't apparent until later in life.'
Researchers began injecting mice with fluoxetine four days after birth until they were 21 days old. Nine weeks after their last injection, the adult animals were given a series of behavioural tests designed to assess their level of anxiety and depression.
The team found that rodents who received drug as newborns were more intimidated by new surroundings and moved more slowly to avoid painful shocks compared to controls. 'They are more inhibited in novel situations,' says Gingrich. 'Extrapolating to people, we'd say the mice are showing symptoms of anxiety and depression or emotional problems.'
With more and more children being given SSRIs to treat socially inappropriate behaviors, the risks associated with emotional disturbances amongst young adults is increasing at alarming rates.
Although children on SSRIs may no more likely to experience a brief psychotic episode than children with a substance abuse disorder, the increased risk of self-harm and/or harm to others does not justify increased use of SSRIs to moderate socially inappropriate behaviors.
Rather, it appears that the use of SSRIs is merely another method of regulating children's behavior, and is not unlike the use of TV and video games in that the parents may choose the relative peace to actual pro-activeparticipation in their children's lives.
Indeed, studies have shown that parents who actively participate in their children's lives also aid in moderating their children's behavior such that socially inappropriate syndromes are easily moderated.
So yes, getting involved in their children's lives is more effective than Paxil and Ritalin.
Labels:
behavior,
children,
mental health,
SSRI,
substance abuse,
suicide,
violence
20050507
The "Experts" on Psychosis Fear "Psychos"
"To many, mental illness is frightening. Unfortunately, this fear can discourage people from seeking help early. Neither denial of the problem nor delay will help a young person with psychosis. Much of the fear surrounding mental illness is based on myths and misunderstandings. Mental illness need not be feared. Like other medical conditions, mental illness can be treated."
Fear is what drives the members of a certain website for club-goers to perpetuate myths and misunderstandings about psychosis.
Rather than seeking to understand it, they continue to live by myths and misunderstanding, contrary to the truth.
Just by talking about it without any knowledge about it, only by their rumours about it, they only show their fear, not their compassion.
These armchair psychiatric savants thus perpetuate their own psychotic state of their own little world, but may perpetuate this state through drug use, especially alcohol or, possibly, the illegal substances.
My advice to them, which shall fall on deaf ears, is you need cognitive and dialectic behavior therapy, STAT.
Chasing success doesn't make you immune to what you fear.
Indeed, you fear in others what you fear in yourself.
For the sociopaths who wish another person dead just for suffering the psychosis attendant to post-postpartum depression have proven to be liars repeatedly.
Sadly though, they are in denial, and thus a greater threat to those of us who are confirmed mental health consumers.
Fear is what drives the members of a certain website for club-goers to perpetuate myths and misunderstandings about psychosis.
Rather than seeking to understand it, they continue to live by myths and misunderstanding, contrary to the truth.
Just by talking about it without any knowledge about it, only by their rumours about it, they only show their fear, not their compassion.
These armchair psychiatric savants thus perpetuate their own psychotic state of their own little world, but may perpetuate this state through drug use, especially alcohol or, possibly, the illegal substances.
My advice to them, which shall fall on deaf ears, is you need cognitive and dialectic behavior therapy, STAT.
Chasing success doesn't make you immune to what you fear.
Indeed, you fear in others what you fear in yourself.
For the sociopaths who wish another person dead just for suffering the psychosis attendant to post-postpartum depression have proven to be liars repeatedly.
Sadly though, they are in denial, and thus a greater threat to those of us who are confirmed mental health consumers.
Labels:
advice,
alcoholism,
fear of change,
mental health,
psychosis,
substance abuse
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